4 8 2 - THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



should be taken out of the propagating pond and put into a smaller 

 pond with a solid bottom of clear loam or sand, from which they may 

 be taken in the spring to the marshes and bogs, in which, from that 

 time, they will increase quite rapidly. 



The question whether leeches can be cultivated on a larg scale 

 with profit may be answered decisively in the affirmative by pointing 

 to a few examples in which the business has been carried on success- 

 fully. The brothers Bechade hired a large swamp from Baron Pichon, 

 near Bordeaux, as grass-land, for a rent of three hundred francs ; after 

 stocking it with leeches they were able to have the rent gradually 

 raised to 25,000 francs without feeling overcharged. Since they began 

 their enterprise, in 1835, leech-culture has risen at Bordeaux to be a 

 source of great profit, involving the application of 5,000 hectares 

 (12,500 acres) of land to the purpose, employing a great many work- 

 men, and representing a capital of several million francs. A land- 

 owner in Mecklenburg is said to receive an income of not less than 

 18,000 marks ($4,284) from his share of the rent of a leech-farm. A 

 physician at Liegingen, in Wurtemberg, stocked a marsh of two and 

 a half hectares (six and a quarter acres) with leeches in 1827, and suc- 

 ceeded so well with it that he was able to sell his worms by the hun- 

 dred-weight. Translated from Die Natur. 



EECENT ORIGINAL "WORK AT HARYARD. 



By J. E. W. niTCnCOCK, A. B. 



SOME able and scholarly articles appeared in one of the leading 

 New York dailies during the last winter, comparing Harvard with 

 the principal universities abroad. The writer evidenced his thorough 

 acquaintance with the curriculum and requirements at Harvard, but 

 the original work done there outside the lecture-room was almost com- 

 pletely ignored, and dismissed with hardly a passing mention. This 

 would tend to confirm the impression of the great majority that a uni- 

 versity is simply a vast class-room, a place where young men study and 

 recite certain time-honored branches of learning, varying their intel- 

 lectual labors by feats of physical prowess, and are rewarded at the 

 end of a specified time with mysterious parchment rolls, currently 

 supposed to possess a subtile and awful power. Of the higher aims of 

 a university, and of the distinction between instructors and investiga- 

 tors, the public at large realize almost nothing. 



With a view to showing the inner intellectual activity of a univer- 

 sity, I recently visited Harvard studies and laboratories to ascertain 

 what work was being carried on aside from the regular routine of in- 

 struction. The spirit that prevails among the gentlemen with whom 



